Fashion designers & beauty companies jump on board to help $ave the earth.
Now that Mother Earth is becoming a hot topic, fashionistas everywhere have surfaced as eco do-gooders. Lancôme recently teamed up Carbonfund.org – a non-profit dedicated to reducing our carbon footprint – in the launch of its new Primordiale Cell Defense & Skin Perfecting Serum (in stores in June). Elettra Rossellini Wiedemann, a spokesperson for Lancôme – and daughter of Isabella Rossellini – was responsible for the unlikely matchup. "Lancôme has given me an incredible opportunity to share my interest and passion for the environment," Rossellini Wiedemann recently told WWD. "And Carbonfund.org is such an amazing organization, which is doing so much good." Lancôme plans to plant 10,000 trees for each of the first 10,000 bottles sold stateside. "It's easy to feel overwhelmed when you think about global warming," says model/actress Shalom Harlow, who is also a Lancôme spokesperson. "Something like this makes you realize every individual can make a difference."
On the fashion front, designer Linda Loudermilk is doing her bit to make eco chic. Her recent Fall 2007 show in New York was sponsored in part by Lexus Hybrid Living, and inspired by the "rock starts of nature" – icebergs. "Life on this planet is changing, humanity is morphing to a new age," notes Loudermilk about her collection. "The ice bodies in the artic, where few humans go, are silently coming apart, floating aimlessly, melting. Things are almost too hot to handle. But through this crisis of global warming, hope emerges."
Translated into fashion, that means a stunning collection of winter white & icy blue dresses with faceted, watermelon-sized sleeves; shiny fringe trim crafted from (of all things) human hair; tailored, of-the-moment neck-to-floor length skirt suits made from organic wool jersey, bamboo wool & rice paper wool; wood pulp stitching details; and sexy rockstar-worthy ensembles in paper wool tweed with recycled silver accessories. Obviously making a statement about fashion & business with her choice of materials, Loudermilk adds: "Fashion changes the way one feels. Even better when it changes the way we treat our environment. Trees are treated kindly, icebergs are revered, not melted, seaweed is used en masse to heal, milk knit is a healthy ingredient, we cover our carbon footprint. Nature is reinventing itself. We morph. Change is inevitable."
